


A Fairy's Dance

by Advena_Phillips



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Family, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2019-01-15 15:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12324180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Advena_Phillips/pseuds/Advena_Phillips
Summary: A young Unseelie fairy flees with a powerful artefact that could spell change in the Great War between the Unseelie and Seelie courts.





	A Fairy's Dance

The petite bare feet of a child skipped across the wild and uneven forest floor. A long and thin leather wrapped package slapped against her calves with every stride, bouncing around as she weaved between trees. Her breath was laboured and tears stained her cheeks.

She had been running non-stop for nearly an hour, scrapes and cuts littered her legs telling of the hardships she had gone through – the overwhelming call for self-preservation cared not for those minor injuries.

Briefly, paranoia forced her to look back, hoping beyond all hope that nobody was following.

Smoke.

Several distant weak spires of grey smoke wavered as they tried to reach the sky, only for the uncaring wind to blow them away. Other than that melancholic sight, she saw only flashes of movements in the foliage.

The aches in her feet soon spiked once again as she tripped over the terrain, causing her to tumble to the ground for the nth time. This time she did not try to recover.

Spotting a shallow rocky cave, she scrambled, small fingers stabbing into the hard ground as she pulled herself into the safety of the alcove. Immediately, her back was against the wall, her legs tucked to her chest as she tried to control her breath and calm her racing heart. She cared not if the package was pressed uncomfortably against her spine.

Bones littered the stone recess and it smelled of wet fur and carrion, signs showing she had invaded the lair of some beast. A silent prayer to the Queen left her lips, pleading that whatever creature it was would not return.

Her breath began to calm but quickly mutated into soft sobs.

She mewled pitifully, tears returning to her pale blue eyes as she called for a mother that would not hear. Inwardly, she berated herself. No Fae, especially one of the Winter Court, should show emotion as she was now. But her more human nature could not help it as the day’s events sank in.

An ambush.

Mother, for some reason, had thought it prudent to take her along with a large troop of fae to escort an artefact of great importance. It got stranger the longer she thought about it as Mother would usually leave her at home. They had taken a roundabout route both there and back, which had been pleasant, despite the occasional disgusted glare she received from the rest of the troop.

On the way back was when the expedition turned down hill. Summer Fae, hidden amongst the foliage, attacked the cohort with their magic and arrows. Troops fell before her eyes one by one and, while she may have been no stranger to death, it was a horrifying sight to see her own people die. Mother had been hit fatally in the chaos. Yet, despite her wound, Mother managed to keep hold of life to offer up a last few words of wisdom.

“Maeve, Maeve my darling,” she had said, having pulled the girl safely behind cover, “Victory will not be ours. Go, take the artefact, take it to your father. He will be able to bring it to the queen, and only he can protect you. Go South-East, find his village, Go!” The package which now rested on her back was thrust onto her and with a final push, she sent Maeve on her way.

She barely made it out alive. she could still smell the remains after their final assault on the cohort.

A deep bestial growl disrupted her musings.

Her eyes flashed up, quickly taking in the form of the interloper; A large grey wolf with murky green eyes which held nothing but animalistic anger.

Without warning, the wolf lunged.

Four frosty blue tendrils shot from her back, deflecting the agitated beasts attack. Quickly, Maeve shot to her feet, running from the alcove to get an advantage, the four tendrils flowing behind like hair in water.

The beast bared its teeth, its hair standing on end as it looked at the Fae, anger diminishing in place of fear.

Her ‘wings’ flowed erratically, her own fear overriding her discipline, though she tried to use it to her advantage, to look bigger than she was as she glared down the creature. The wolf lunged again, only to get restrained inches from her face, tangled in her tendrils. It thrashed around, struggling in her grip.

Maeve called upon her ice magics to summon a dagger of ice, but before she could, pain flooded her system. The wolf had broken from her grip and clamped its jaws around one of her ethereal tendrils. With all her might, she threw the beats away from her, slamming it into a tree which snapped ominously.

Cursing, she looked at the trees, trying to find the tallest. When she did, Maeve stretched out two of her icy tendrils and latched onto the closest branch and pulled.

Up she went, as her wings pulled her safely from the maw of the beast below. She shot out her two other tendrils and grabbed the next set of branches. Pain spiked again and the injured wing faltered in its grip. She slipped, but quick thinking stopped herself from the wolf’s ravenousness maw as she latched onto the tree trunk as if it were a lifeline. Her injured tendril drooped uselessly.

Maeve took in a deep breath and blocked out the growls from below. She knew it was going to be difficult, but she needed to push on regardless. Two of her working wings shot up, latching onto another thick branch and she slowly crawled up the tree, inch by inch as the last of her uninjured wings wrapped around the tree trunk like a belt.

Like a mantra, she repeated this action, soon reaching the tree top.

Her eyes were drawn East, and she could see that the storm was much closer than she had assumed. Maeve berated herself for her weakness, for wasting her time wallowing in grief. Using the sun and time, her eyes drifted South-East, the direction Mother had directed her.

From her vantage point, she could not see any signs of civilisation, but she knew there was nowhere else to go. Now to deal with the wolf.

She may have been trained, but she never had to put that training to the test in the field. So with this in mind, she knew it would be dangerous to fight the wolf. The only safe option was to get as far away from it before descending.

And so, she did. Crawling down the tree was much more difficult that climbing, but it was simple with the help of her wings. When she reached the middle of the trunk, she stretched out her uninjured tendrils to latch onto a closer tree in the general direction of South-East.

Again and again, she did so, always keeping an eye on the wolf and the direction she was going. Thankfully, after jumping nearly sixteen trees, the wolf had lost interest and returned to its home. Only then, did Maeve begin her descent down the truck until her feet hit solid earth.

Her wings retracted into her back, and she began the trek.

On occasion, she would climb to the treetops to scout for the village. All too often a curse would leave her mouth, aimed at her inability to fly like the older Fae. From there, she would scout out her position, looking for any sight of a town.

And as she did, she thought about her father; a man she had never seen but had heard much about. With all that her mother had told her – in hushed whispers of course as to mate with a human was heavy frowned upon; stillborns and mothers dying during labour were a common enough occurrence even without the social stigma of ‘sullying oneself with mortals’ – she had built a simulacrum of an image.

Her father, a competent human Magi who had, albeit accidentally, rescued her mother from the Summer Fae. In her mind, he was tall, strong, dressed in robes of pale blue, white and black, his trusty staff by his side, attuned to conjure powerful magics. But it was not just that, her mother had said that he had been kind and chivalrous, but hidden underneath was a cold and calculating man with a strong belief in being entitled to the sweat of his own brow. It was this that attracted mother to him, and what resulted in her birth.

It was these thoughts that drove her forward. It was her goal. Sleep mattered not for the Fae, and while being a half-breed meant that she was susceptible to human exhaustion, especially when she used her magics, she pushed on regardless.

Maeve needed to find her father. To deliver the artefact and find the sanctuary that her mother had promised. That was that.

...

There!

Several pillars of smoke rising above the tree line, up into the heavens. Not too far away from the source of the smoke, she could see the top of a windmill. A grin split her face.

She slid back down the tree, letting go completely of the trunk and branches a few meters above the ground to speed her descent. Following the direction, she knew the smoke had come from, she raced through the woods, applying the use of her tendrils to make traversing through the trees as streamlined and graceful as possible.

She knew she was getting close, it was so close.

A whip of golden light shot out, wrapping around her legs, pulling them out from underneath her.

Her face met the unforgiving earth. Hard.

Pulling herself up as best she could – as her legs had been tied together by the whip – she looked around. A dagger of ice already in hand.

From out the woods, two figures dressed in armour of yellows and reds. One was female if the curvature of the armour was anything to go by; she wore a thick helm, just as thick as her armour with a longsword by her side. She was also the one holding the whip.

The other had taken off his helm, revealing the thin and relatively handsome features of the Fae. His armour was light and sleek with hues of yellows and greens. Obviously, he was the tracker, and his companion was the muscle. What was worse, was that their outfits and overall presence denoted them as Summer Fae.

The male Fae stepped forwards imperiously, “You were quite difficult to find, little half-breed.”

Maeve did not answer, only choosing to glare down the two. Feigning innocence or even pleading for her life was useless. The former because they would see right through the lie and the latter because the two Courts, the Summer and Winter, loathed each other.

“Silent, eh?” he smirked and stepped forwards, “Why not make it permane-”

“What is going on here!” a powerful, booming voice reverberated around the forest. All three Fae turned to face the intruder. A man, tall and lanky dressed in the garb of a common farmer, a disappointing visage when compared to the voice that spoke, but the simple presence of the man told a different story. His pale eyes were as hard as ice, seemingly glowing through the mop of long and black bedraggled hair barely held in place by a brown ribbon ponytail, as he looked between the Seelie and Unseelie. “What is your business here, Fae.” It was less a question, more a demand as he glared down the two Summer Fae.

The Summer Fae with the pike answered, “We’re just hunting down the little half-breed, my good si-.” the fairy’s voice stalled. His eyes narrowed, glaring down the unperturbed man before breaking out into maddening laughter, “It seems like someone’s been consorting with the Winter Fae.”

The unknown man tightened his grip on his sword, his body sinking into a defensive position.

“So unfriendly,” the Fae continued, still smiling gleefully, “It must be Winter’s touch. You could redeem yourself you know, help us kill the half-breed and we’ll purify your soul lickety-spl-”

In a second, the man shot out his hand; the air around the limb distorted and fog seeped from his fingers. A second later, and a spear of ice shot from his hand. Surprised, the Fae only had a few seconds to quickly move out the way before he was impaled. With a pirouette, the Fae swung his pike and shattered the icicle mid-air.

The Fae with the whip flicked her weapon, releasing Maeve as he joined the fray against the mortal man who was holding up surprisingly well against the Summer Fae. Capitalising on the moment, Maeve shot to her feet and used wings to lung forwards at the second Fae as he charged down the interloping mage.

She summoned a dagger of ice in her hands and charged the unsuspecting fairy. Her aim was true as her weapon found itself embedded into the back of the Fae’s knee.

A hand came swinging, and slammed into the side of her head, flinging her away from the injured fairy.

Looking up with dazed eyes, she saw the fairy fall to the floor as he tried to rip the weapon from the back of his leg. It was all for nought as the human’s blade came swinging and cut deeply into the Fae.

The first Fae tried to flee, six tendrils of sunlight burst from his back, unravelling into large leaf shaped sheets of solid light. He tried to take off, but before he could a small knife flew through the air, slicing into one of the great wings.

He screamed, and Maeve used her own tendrils to down the man, latching onto his leg and pulling.

The Fae slammed into the ground with a resounding thud. He tried to get up, but the mage had other plans. With a muttered incantation and intricate gestures with his hands, clumps of ice shot from the ground and latched onto the fairy’s wrists.

The Fae shouted incoherently, cursing both the mage and the half-breed to oblivion until he was finally silenced by a sword to the neck.

For a few moments, the half-breed and the magi just stood there, recovering from the fight. Then the man spoke, “What’s your name, kid.” Casually cleaned off the blood from his blade, using the clothes from the dead Fae as a makeshift cloth.

Maeve stayed quiet, knowing the dangers of willingly giving up her name.

“Oh yeah, almost forgot,” the man said, seemingly reading her mind, “Your people and your names. How about a trade; a name for a name?”

Maeve thought it over, the mage had saved her life and, if the Summer Fae were to be believed, was an ally of the Unseelie. She nodded her head, “Okay.”

“Alphonse.”

Maeve froze, looking up at the human, her eyes wide, “Father?” she asked, her hand subconsciously gripping tightly to the package behind her.

He recoiled, looking quite shocked at the child’s exclamation. He looked to the girl, as if seeing her in a new light, “You’re Avette’s?”

She nodded, “I’m Maeve Ada, daughter of Avette.” She slid the package from her back, ready to present it to the man who sired her, but hesitated. No. she thought, hugging the leather-bound package. I won’t put him in danger by letting him know.

Through all this, Alphonse had been looking at the girl. He did not press about the package, though not for a lack of trying. After all, his mind was still spinning at the idea of meeting his first, and only, born child. “…So, you’re my daughter? Uh… my da’s going to kill me.”

“If he touches you I will rip him limb from limb,” Maeve growled. She had already lost one of her parents, she was not going to lose another.

“I was exaggerating,” He replied dryly, his hands raised in mock defence. He paused, then raked his eyes across the surrounding woods, “So, where’s Avette?”

“Mother… she’s dead. She told me to come find you. She wanted you to deliver this to the Unseelie.” She grabbed the leather wrapped artefact, but paused upon seeing her father’s face.

He stood still as he gazed down at her, his eyes dulled and laced with melancholy. He bent down to the young Unselieen half-breed, their eyes levelled and Maeve could see the void in his eyes become awash kindness, “You look so much like her.”

The next second, his arms wrapped around her tightly.

She tensed as if expecting an attack, but when it sank in, she returned the act ten times over.

“Come on… let's go home.”


End file.
